Ahmadinejad's post-presidency not that far on the heels of Bush's

PERISCOPE: "A Brewing Battle of Heavyweights in Tehran," by Maziar Bahari, Newsweek, 8 January 2007, p. 8.

I've made the case that Bush's post-presidency began with Katrina, but I think Bush-taunting Ahmadinejad's ain't much further behind, especially after the Iranian parliament voted to shorten his term! Ahmadinejad's real time at the plate looks like it will last less than two years, by this judgment.

The analysis here speaks for itself:

Iranians are deserting the president they elected by a landslide in June 2005. Not only did university students heckle Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with chants of "Death to the dictator!" during a speech last month in Tehran, state-run TV had the temerity to report it. Some of his own supporters criticized his recent international gathering of Holocaust revisionists as harmful to Iran's national interests. And thanks to his economic flubs, Iranians are grumbling about inflation instead of reveling in an oil-boom windfall. Iranian TV reported that news, too, and when Ahmadinejad complained about the story, the network's director (a former ally) replied: "We just tell the truth." The legislature has stopped rubber-stamping the 50-year-old president's decisions, and the latest local elections cost him all but two of his allies on Tehran's 15-seat city council. The big winner: his pothole-filling, street-cleaning successor as mayor of Tehran, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, 45.

Ghalibaf, the article goes on, is already casting a shadow over Ahmadinejad's presidency as the 2009 election looms in the distance. No, he's not some messiah reformer. Same basic package of conservative, just far more pragmatic and willing to deal to get things done. Got a PhD in geopolitics. Famous now for quelling a student protest by holding talks with the leaders and okaying a needle exchange program for Tehran's many drug addicts.

Ghalibaf could have been prez in 2005, but reached out too much to moderates while Ahmadinejad courted the hardliners. Interesting to see how well that's worked out now, isn't it?

Another good example of why calling Iran totalitarian is wrong. It's a rancid old authoritarianism that's got more skulldugging internal politics than we understand, much less take advantage of. We've got to get smarter on this country. We focus on one thing (WMD) and as a result we're getting played by Tehran across the dial.

Their fox v. our hedgehog, but fortunately for us, not the smartest fox in town.